


Somewhere Out There

by AngelOfBooze



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Character of Color, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Muslim Character, I guess the romance in this could be unrequited or even nonexistent. Your choice really, Light Angst, Other, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 12:59:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5164730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfBooze/pseuds/AngelOfBooze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> In a Hollywood movie Troy would be exactly the same, except with more stories to tell </i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Songfic</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere Out There

 

_Somewhere out there_

_Beneath the pale moonlight_

Abed is sitting on the expansive balcony of his sprawling Hollywood flat. He rocks gently back and forth in his chair, imitating the push and pull of the tide, of the ocean that Troy is braving with a single companion. Abed’s fingers thud duly against the wine glass in his hand. He brings it to his lips and takes a quick yet reverent sip of the remaining Ribena. He looks into the sky. Void of stars, the fiery balls of light devoured hungrily by the lights that reach up from the city. The moon is shining sweetly down, its delicate light hardly touching the top of the city before being swallowed by the aggressive and frantic light pollution spread evenly out over the city. The clamour of the city below him reminds Abed of how his mind feels when he’s going about his day. Filled to the brim with thoughts and ideas he can’t quite grasp before they’ve moved out of the city limits, lost to Abed and the world forever.

 

_Someone's thinking of me_

_And loving me tonight_

He pulls out his phone, (what’s one more source of artificial light in this artificial city?) and scrolls through his contacts, his long index finger hovers over Troys name, illuminated in the clinical glow from his iPhone, it’s not the latest version, Abed never saw a reason to keep up with the ever changing trends. He hasn’t called Troy in months. Their schedules clash dramatically, Troys internet and cell reception is unreliable at best and completely non-existent at worst. Mostly Abed sends long chunks of text, just full of the thoughts that he manages to catch and hold onto. A new project he’s working on, a prose about an ethereal human he has seen on the bus. The words he so willingly types eat hungrily away at his data, his wallet becoming thin and starving. He doesn’t mind. As long as he can put a smile on Troys face, it’s worth it.

 

_Somewhere out there_

_Someone's saying a prayer_  

Abed stands in front of his prayer mat, brought with him when he moved from Greendale. He hasn’t used it in years, but his heart feels strung out, his grey matter worn thin, the space behind his eyes starting to thrum with the beginings of another stress headache. He double checks he’s facing the Qibla. He has cleansed himself twice (he figured the extra time would make up for the lost time). Abed raises his hands. He goes through the motions of Isha, his mind folding in on itself. He observes his thoughts, barely registering the city outside his apartment as sirens blare and drunk strangers yell. He stops moving when he reaches sajdah. He asks God, or any higher power that will listen a question that has been eating away at the space inside his ribs where his heart should be (he thinks Troy forgot something in the cloning process). He asks God what he has done to deserve the life he lives. A dream job slipping through his fingers because he can’t focus because his best friend is somewhere out on the ocean and could die at any moment. Of course he’s sinned. He’s worn women’s clothing (gender has always confused him). He’s fallen in love with a man. And he’s had wine and vodka and almost every other alcohol on Gods green earth. Abed knows he’s deserving of punishment (if he even believes what he does and feels are sins) but he still cannot work out why Troy is being punished for another mans wrong doings. Troy should be safe and warm and _home_. Not in the middle of the ocean. Last time he and Abed spoke, Troy was close to tears.

 

_That we'll find one another_

_In that big somewhere out there_

He looks at Troys twitter. The update is one he’s read many times before. It was posted three weeks ago. Troy updates his twitter, (or DMs Abed) whenever he pulls into a new port and can scrounge up some wifi. Abed goes to his DMs. He reads over their conversations. He finds one that’s five months old. He has promised to help Troy edit together the footage he managed to gather on his trip. Abed wishes he had gone on that trip. He thinks it would still count as a solo trip around the world since Troy and Abed are more like Troy&Abed. Like Turk&JD or Joey&Chandler. Nothing could pull them apart, except for a trip around the world bequeathed upon Troy by their (second) craziest friend.

 

_And even though I know how very far apart we are_

_It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star_

The tickets to Australia cost more than Abed anticipated. Their triple digets glare at Abed out of the screen of his laptop, a taunt made just for him. Troys last known location was Sydney. More specifically the harbour. He had good wifi there. The plane is too much for Abed to afford if he wants to keep his apartment for him and Troy (He’s been accepting less and less commissions and editing jobs. He doesn’t feel up to focusing on them). Abed scrubs his hands down his face. His fingers catch on the rough stubble there. The stubble that threatens the beginnings of a beard if he’s not careful. He hasn’t found a sufficient reason to shave for the past week. He doesn’t even know if Troy’s still in Sydney. He could have made his way up to Cairns by now. He’s desperate. He misses his best friend. They used to talk to each other almost every day. Abed blames Pierce. Pierce, who died in such a way that made it so Abed could never look at one of his favourite movies the same way again.

 

_And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby_

_It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky_

Abed walks down the street. His feat crunch over fallen leaves from the tall skinny trees that are scattered haphazardly throughout the city. The night air is tainted sour by the fumes emitting from vehicles all around Abed. Or he can just taste his own breath. Abed peace of mind is tainted both by the pedestrians running about like andts and the thoughts that swarm in his skull like hornets. He sits on one of the benches, the slats digging into the backs of his knees and the strange shape of the seat making it impossible to get comfortable. The weather is cool, the gente breeze that blows past makes Abed shiver. A few coins are tossed his way by well-meaning or pitying people, too busy to look and see the expensive phone resting in Abeds palm. He sees himself in reflection as he passes by a shop window, he decides he needs to go home and clean himself up. He hands the money (Five dollars and seventy cents) to someone who really needs it, he doesn’t check their palms for phones. He heads home to his sprawling, cold, and empty apartment, his bare feet echoing desolately on the tile. As he tucks himself under the covers of his place on the top bunk, Abed glances out of his yawning window and glances at the milky void where they sky’s meant to be. He wonders if Troy is sleeping, too. He remembers that Troy is in Australia.

 

_Somewhere out there If love can see us through_

Abed presses the ‘Answer call button’ on Skype. The screen of his laptop looks like it’s made of about eight pixels, Troy is in the Solomon Islands. The internet isn’t great and he dropped his laptop on the concrete of the docks back in Brisbane. But despite the lag and the screen freezing once every three minutes, Abed feels a rush of warmth every time he sees Troys laggy and pixelated smile. The smiles Troy sends his way make Abeds palms sweat and when Troy lets out a horse laugh, a film of unshed tears develop across Abeds eyes. Troy is showing him some of the interesting things he picked up in Australia, he holds up boxes of sweets and jars of bitter spreads. He avoids all serious topics. It would be impossible for them to hold any kind of heart felt conversation when Abed needs to repeat himself six times to have his ‘cool cool cool’s heard by Troy. When they hang up after two hours and fifty three minutes of talking, Abed lets the tears fall freely

 

_Then we'll be together_

_Somewhere out there_

_Out where dreams come true_

The sea spray drenches Abed as he waits for Troy. He can feel the ground beneath him tilt with every wave. Except the sea is a fountain, and the rocking is all Abeds doing. The boat pulling up beside him is on a trailer. It’s almost identical to the day Troy left Greendale. A perfect narrative parallel. Abed glances at the boat. It looks well-worn after a year of endless voyaging. Abed glances up as a shadow falls over him. It’s Troy. His hair is unlike when Abed had seen it last. Instead of being smooth and even, a nice surface for Abed to run his hands over again and again, Troys hair branched up and away from his scalp, the curls had become individuals, springing up and leaning as far away from each other as they could get. Abed notices a new scar just above Troys collar bone, a line of pink-silver skin that Abed can’t remember. He tries to think about how Troy got the scar. How far into the journey he must have been. Abed remembers the pirates and the tears that were threatening to spill from his eyes do. They stream down his face and the muscles he has hardly used during the last year begin to quiver uncomfortably, he knows he looks a mess, just like he did the last time Troy saw him. This is not how his life would go in a Hollywood movie.

In a Hollywood movie Troy would be exactly the same, except with more stories to tell, Abed would have survived the year without him and a hair wouldn’t be out of place. Abed would bring Troy home and they would fall into their usual routines. But he knows, as Troy wraps him in his well-toned arms (pushing against a bruise Abed gave himself in a panic at the Supermarket), that his life is more like a cult classic Indie made in Germany or Australia. Both Troy and Abed have changed dramatically over the past 12 months. More than they would like to admit. But, as Troy squeezes Abed(just the right pressure) and Abed feels Troys rough beard against his neck, he knows that Troy wasn’t the one adrift for a year. Abed know that wrapped up in Troys arm, he is finally home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank-you so much for reading!  
> This is both my first song fic and my first fic for Community!  
> I hope you enjoyed it.  
> Comments and kudos would be appreciated!


End file.
